The Wessex Effect—Part 2

By
Joe Francica

In the mid 1990's Scott
Elliott, founder of this publication, started Wessex, a company offering
nationwide street network data for the entire U.S.for a fraction of the
price than what was currently being charged by the more "mainstream" data
vendors.It changed the landscape of how data was priced and the ripple
affects are still being felt.Scott's vision was that everyone should be
able to afford to use GIS technology and the only way to do that was to
start with inexpensive data.

I have to wonder if we are not experiencing
the second wave of "The Wessex Effect" today or will very soon.I keep
coming back to Microsoft's entry into GIS because, frankly, they are hard
to ignore.WordStar and WordPerfect ignored them for too long and look
what happened to them.MapPoint reminds me of Word 2.0.The words "cool"
and "neat" jump to mind when I think back to first seeing a Windows-based
word processor.MapPoint, in similar fashion, shows terrain views and has
the ability to update road construction data for routing.Two "neat" features.

But let's face it.It is not the
rocket science we have come to love, embrace, caress, cajole, curse, and
whimper about.It's just a simple piece of software, with some data...lots
of data...probably more to come...for free.

In speaking with Claritas President
and CEO Bob Nascenzi, he argues, "Microsoft's .NET strategy basically is
that, they tell me, all they want to do is develop tools so that people
can build applications.They're going to make all their money, they say,
on the tools.They don't care about the data, but they basically want to
give the data away to everybody for free or if they charge for it, they
want the money!"

What!? Don't care about the data?
How dare they try to undermine the foundation of GIS and take away 80%
of the cost of ownership.It's a scary thought.What if they hired 20 demographers
and massaged the census data till the cows come home (or the cappuccino
machine runs out at the coffee bar); bundle it with MapPoint 2003, add
Block Groups, stick in a gravity model, link to 1 meter satellite data
as a backdrop and charge, $250, $195, or $99?

This is all pure conjecture.I don't
have inside knowledge that this will occur.But I know that Microsoft has
the capital and is yanking around some geodemographic companies to see
who will tap dance to their song.The end result may be the "Microsoft
Effect."